?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 600 - $ 900
(MUSICIANS.) ARMSTRONG, LOUIS; AND ARETHA FRANKLIN. Two items, each Signed by one: Typed Letter * Document. Armstrong. TLS, "Louis Armstrong / Satchmo," to Erich Kauffmann, praising his lip balm, sending a gift [not present], hoping to perform together in Germany, and sending regards. 2 pages, 4to, "Satchmo / in Africa" stationery, written on two sheets; two punch holes in left margin, horizontal folds. Franklin. Partly-printed DS, certifying a California tax withholding report, naming Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation as withholding agent. 2 pages, 3 1/2 x 8 1/2 inches; written on recto and verso of single sheet; two punch holes in upper margin with minor loss to printed text. Corona, NY, 2 June 1961; [Los Angeles, 23 December 1971]
Armstrong: "I received the lip salve. Thanks very much. I was getting down to just a few tins left. . . . "With your lip salve, Bis Ma Rex [an antacid], and a good laxative, I shall be happy healthy a long long time. They are the rudimentals of life. . . . Don't ever stop making salve. When and if you should stop making the salve, I shall quit playing the trumpet. . . ." Erich Kauffmann was the son-in-law of German trombonist Franz Schuritz, who developed and marketed a special lip balm for horn players in the 1930s. Armstrong became a devoted customer, and by the mid-1950s, it was sold as "Louis Armstrong Lip-Salve."
